scrim
/skrɪm
/noun [mass noun]
1Strong, coarse fabric, chiefly used for heavy-duty lining or upholstery.
1.1 [count noun] (In a theatre) a piece of gauze cloth that appears opaque until lit from behind, used as a screen or backcloth: a plain scrim for backcloth and good lighting are all that are needed...
- Viewers walking about become ghostly figures in empty rooms, their tangible bodies transformed into shadows whenever they pass behind the scrims.
- Motifs projected onto the scrims appear to be borrowed from the architecture of the theater itself.
- This created the illusion that the mirror was a graffitied scrim behind which lay another room.
1.2 [count noun] A type of heatproof gauze cloth put over film or television lamps to diffuse the light.
1.3 [count noun] North American A thing that conceals or obscures something: a thin scrim of fog covered the island...
- The second fan generated a semblance of underwater movement in Atlantic, scrim rippling along the flow.
- He pulls the building's structural frame back from the facade so that the glass is read as a thin, form-covering scrim.
- A voice whispered ‘Let me think,’ as a black scrim descended.
Origin
Late 18th century: of unknown origin.